


A Study in the Care and Feeding of Magical Hockey Babies During A Major Weather Event, Conducted by Sean Monahan (Sample Size of 1)

by kinetikatrue



Category: Calgary Flames RPF, Hockey RPF, Winnipeg Jets RPF
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Gen, Snowed In, magical hockey baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-06 16:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3141434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/pseuds/kinetikatrue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean's life is really, REALLY hard: snowed in at the MTS Centre with his entire team, plus most of the Jets and the two teams' support staffs; stuck taking care of a baby that just showed up out of nowhere; and having to do it all with the dubious help of Johnny and a few of the Jets guys. He doesn't think keeping the baby alive while they ride out the storm is too much to ask, but, well, between the arguing and the singing and the way the lights keep flickering, it just might be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study in the Care and Feeding of Magical Hockey Babies During A Major Weather Event, Conducted by Sean Monahan (Sample Size of 1)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shoshanah_ben_hohim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoshanah_ben_hohim/gifts).



> For Shoshana_ben_hohim - hope you enjoy this mash-up of two of your prompts
> 
> Prompt 4: Accidental Baby Acquisition, with bonus points if multiple players are involved and some are trying to get rid of the baby while some are trying to keep it. More bonus points if it’s all the fault of the rookies/younger players. Multiple rookies with counterproductive goals and childcare strategies!
> 
> +
> 
> Prompt 1: Dealing with weather related natural disasters... I want a story that explores the possibilities of a team that is encountering some serious weather-related travel drama – stuck at the airport overnight, bus crash (but obviously w/no character death) on the way from the airport into the snow, maybe the kind of situation New York would have had to deal with Sandy had there not been a lockout then, power outages... JUST SAYING magical realism would satisfy this prompt. 
> 
> It's not so much with the Epic Peril, though, as Real Life with A Baby under Difficult Conditions.
> 
> Thanks go to 12ways for getting me through this - and svmadelyn for her patience.

Sean emerges from his desperate trawl of parenting blogs and baby advice sites certain of three things. 1) The Jets' team kitchen had better stock enriched whole milk, sugar; and something they can use to feed the baby out of. 2) They need to raid the team store for baby clothes or get creative with hockey gear soon. And 3), that if he has any say in it, the baby is going to get to grow up to be any gender zie so desires. 

(His bookmarks are stuffed with new-to-him sites to be turned to in case of emergency - fingers crossed that the arena wireless stays up.)

Before he has a chance to announce any of this, though, Trouba stops bickering with Scheifele over what to sing and starts singing again. And it's not that he has a bad voice or anything. It's just, well, his song choices. If Sean were going to sing the baby a lullaby, it would be a classic, like… something. Something that he'd be able to remember if Jacob Trouba weren't already filling their repurposed trainer's room with the 'sweet' sounds of what Sean assumes is yet another song from one of his fucking movie musicals.

At least he's holding the baby correctly, though, so Sean won't have to snatch hir away from Trouba for endangering anything other than hir ears - and even that's a finite danger; Trouba's songs aren't ever that long.

So he can wait to give the rest of the guys their marching orders. The locker room towels they've got the kid swaddled in aren't entirely inadequate, given the building still has a functional HVAC system, despite the storm outside (and, they've been told, a back-up generator, in case they lose the grid). He's already learned that a Trouba interrupted while singing is a pouty Trouba. And right now, nobody's fighting or crying - though Johnny looks like he'd like an excuse to be - and he'd like to keep it that way.

When Trouba's had his final dramatic flourish and momentarily gone quiet again, Sean clears his throat and says, as loudly as he feels comfortable getting, with the baby right there and all, "Okay, the kid's gonna get hungry eventually - and we're gonna need to find something better to dress hir in -"

"How do you know it's a her?" Scheifele cuts in. And Sean can see what's coming before Johnny even opens his mouth, just from the way his eyes brighten and his entire focus shifts to Scheifele.

"Nobody ever told you about the birds and the bees?" he asks, smile exactly as innocent as he isn't.

Sean tries to head it off anyway, says, "I said 'hir', h-I-r, not 'her', h-E-r." But he's protesting fruitlessly - nobody's paying attention to him.

Trouba's started singing again, quieter, "Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees and the flowers…," and dancing the baby around his little bit of the training room.

Scheifele's telling Johnny, scornful as shit, "I'm twenty-two, not _two_. And I bet I had better sex-ed than you, besides. But I wasn't there when you guys found the baby, so how am I supposed to know if you checked? Or if you'd know what you were looking at, even if you did."

And Johnny was already focused on Scheifele and dicking him around just for the fun of talking shit, but that goads him into saying, "I bet I got better sex-ed on the _playground_ than you did out of all your classes put together. Diagrams don't have anything on the real thing," like his Jersey pride is on the line over fucking sex-ed. Then he rolls right on with, "Just for that, I'm not gonna tell you if we did." He's not actually sticking his tongue out at Scheifele, but he doesn't need to be; his tone gets it across, no problem.

 _Fucking hell_ , why'd Sean have to get stuck in this situation with such a bunch of _children_? He wants to win their now-delayed game and lock down the last wild card slot as much as anybody, but until Trouba loses interest and/or the storm finally moves on, his number one priority has to be baby-wrangling. Everything else can wait. 

But that's not how Johnny rolls. No, he runs his mouth whenever he feels like it. And, of course, Scheifele's not the kind of guy to back down - right now, he's saying something to Johnny about how he bets Johnny can't find anything down there _without_ a diagram. And, just, Sean can already see how this is all going to go horribly, shittily wrong. He sighs internally - not that any of them would've noticed if he did it out loud, between the chirping and the singing - and figures on getting his 'boring' ass in gear and playing referee. He's still deciding between smacking Johnny upside the head and a good old ear-piercing whistle when Trouba's singing cuts out and he turns to Johnny and says his name, sharp and attention-getting.

Johnny's fake-sweet, _who, me_ , 'Yes, Jakey?' doesn't sound any more innocent than anything else he's said since this whole shitshow got on the road.

But Trouba just tells him, pleasant but firm, "Quit being a dick to my Scheife. I _will_ stuff you in a closet and lock it down so tight they won't even be able to hear you yellin' to be let out if you don't." And he keeps smiling that wide, sunny smile the whole time, too. Then he goes back to dancing, and singing, "...and a guy and a guy, and the way they could kiss…"

Johnny's shut up, anyway, so Sean decides fuck it, and asks Scheifele, "Think you can raid the team store so we can get the kid dressed a little more warmly? And maybe find something rubberized we can use to keep hir from peeing all over everything?" Zie's already taken out one of Sean's hoodies and the shorts he was wearing for warm-ups - and while zie hasn't soaked through the double layers of toweling, yet, Sean wants better defenses in place before they try feeding hir.

There's a moment where it looks kinda like Scheifele is considering trying Sean on the question of what to call the baby, but it passes and he nods. And then makes a face when Sean adds, "And take Johnny with you. He _can_ be pretty charming." And discreet, Sean hopes. He wants a better handle on the situation before they start announcing the baby's existence to the whole world.

Of course, Johnny looks even less pleased, probably at the idea of dressing a kid entirely in Jets merch - and having to go pick it out with Scheifele, besides - but whatever. They can raid their own team store when they get back to Calgary. And maybe buy some ordinary kids' clothing, too. If the kid's still their problem at that point. But they gotta dress hir in something in the meantime, while they ride out what the weather reports have started describing as 'the storm of the century' (despite it only being 2015).

Neither of them actually argue with Sean, though - just turn to shoot Trouba twin glares when he says, "Try and behave, assholes. That means you, too, Scheife," when their attempt at fitting through the training room door at the same time devolves into a shoving match. And then they're off - in sullen silence, for a minor miracle.

 

Whether sending Johnny and Scheifele off together was a good idea, well, they probably kind of know the answer already. But Sean trusts Johnny to try and complete their assigned task, even if he's not particularly on board with dealing with the kid long-term, so if it's possible for them to get stuff from the team store, they probably will. Plus, baby clothes should be easier to figure out than DYI baby food. And if Sean's lucky, Johnny's desire to dick around with Scheifele will lead to them grabbing one of everything on offer, 'boys' stuff and 'girls' stuff both. And that will be all to the good in Sean's campaign to let the kid figure out gender all on hir own. 

Which reminds him, he should probably get a start on getting Trouba on board with that. Fuck. He's, like, the worst choice for the job. He'd never even thought about this stuff before today, really, and he's just ...not a words guy. Plus, he knows next to nothing about Trouba that wasn't in a scouting report, aside from how much he likes to sing. Yeah, he seems like a decent guy, but that's not much to start from in terms of figuring out what argument to make, besides 'it's the right thing to do'. And Sean's not sure he's even got a handle on all the specifics of that.

Standing around isn't getting them - or his thoughts - anywhere, though, so turning to Trouba and telling him, "We're on food duty," it is, then.

Trouba nods and asks, "I'm guessing you have a plan, then?"

It's not a complicated one, but it's the best he's got for now - and having a plan makes Sean feel better. He tells Trouba, "Find the team kitchen. Hope you guys stock the stuff we need."

That gets an amused look from Trouba, though he just says, "Pretty sure we don't carry baby food, but I can play native guide."

Sean says, "Cool," and jerks a thumb towards the door. "Let's get going."

That's that, aside from Trouba taking a moment to zip the baby inside his hoodie, still wrapped up in the towels, the better to keep hir warm. They get out the door, no pushing and shoving necessary. And Trouba doesn't even try to start singing, like he maybe gets that Sean wants to concentrate on keeping the kid alive - and that that counts as a distraction when zie's not fussing.

They continue to manage to co-exist peacefully on the way. Sean keeps his phone out, so he can re-read the article about what to feed babies if you don't have formula or breastmilk to give 'em - and Trouba walks ahead of him, keeping an eye out and leading the way. He doesn't even give Sean too much shit for repeating, 'whole milk, sugar, purified water', over and over again to himself as he walks. Which is, of course, a lot easier than saying the stuff he actually needs to be saying.

After a few more minutes of walking and not coming up with anything better, he blurts out, "So, you know - and I know - what the baby's hiding beneath hir diaper."

Trouba nods and says, half to the baby, "A stinky, stinky butt." But his smile says he's joking, pretty clearly.

Sean forges on, "But, like, it's dumb to try and, uh, gender the kid too much right away." The words feel awkward in his mouth - he's not sure he's even using 'gender' right - but there's nothing for it to keep going, explain what he means in words he knows he's using right for sure, say, "I mean, does that face look like a girl's face? or a boy's? It just looks like a baby, right? So what difference does it make if zie has a dick or not? Except to whether we're gonna be dodging pee geysers whenever we change hir diaper."

All that gets him out of Trouba is a, "Yup, you're a baby, aren't you? Yes, you are," goofy voice and all, followed by a series of silly faces, all aimed at said baby.

Sean doesn't know how to take that, at all. Like, did Trouba actually hear any of the rest of what he'd said? Was that agreement? Is it even worth trying to have the rest of the conversation? He's not the quitting type, though, so in the end, all there is to do is add, "Anyway, I've been trying to not refer to hir using 'he' or 'she'. So, y'know, if you wanted to get on board with that, I'd appreciate it. Can't start too soon."

Trouba doesn't look up from his strenuous face-making session to ask, "...but you just said 'her'?"

Which, well, at least proves that he's partially listening now, though Sean had been right to think nobody was paying attention earlier. So time for another round of explaining, "I said 'hir', h-I-r, not 'her', h-E-r."

And that gets the face-making turned in Sean's direction - and Trouba asking, "...so someone made up a word to use in place of 'her' that sounds exactly the same? Is there one that sounds like 'he', too? And were they _trying_ to be as confusing as possible?"

"It's zie, actually. And I don't know? I've never heard anybody say any of this stuff before. But, well, I guess I just want this kid to get to be whoever they are. Though zie'd better like hockey." That last's probably the only thing Sean had known about his feelings on kids - aside from a vague idea that he probably wanted some someday - before his descent into the world of parenting blogs. The rest's all new, unexpected revelations brought on by having to figure out how to keep the kid alive.

"Well, obviously the kid's gonna like hockey. Not gonna get a choice about that, are you?" And Trouba's back to talking to the baby and ignoring Sean.

 

In the team kitchen, their luck holds. Sean knows they're gonna have to explain the baby eventually (inasmuch as they CAN explain it; all Sean's got is 'it was just there, in the middle of one of the hallways and Trouba decided he needed to sing it songs and cuddle it'), but he'll take it being deserted for the moment. Though there are signs of recent occupation: a decimated post-practice buffet and a stack of plates in the sink. Sean's stomach growls a little at the reminder that team breakfast was a while ago - and he's not going anywhere to get lunch any time soon, not unless the storm sweeps out just as suddenly as it swept in. When Sean glances over at him, Trouba looks like he's feeling it, too - and for a moment, Sean wavers. But, well, they have a baby to feed; they can negotiate whether the Jets post-practice buffet is open to Flames afterwards. 

He tells Trouba, "Focus," though he's saying it as much to remind himself as to actually order Trouba around.

Trouba just rolls his eyes and heads for a wall of cupboards, so Sean guesses that leaves him the easy task of searching the fridge. Fortunately, there's jug upon jug of fortified whole milk right in front of his face when he opens the door, and when he turns with one in hand, Trouba's standing at the counter with a bag of organic sugar. So, after a little more hunting through cupboards produces a small saucepan, Sean gathers it all up, pours some milk into the pan, and sets it on the stove over low heat - and then starts some water boiling in one of the electric kettles ranged along the counter. He's staring at a drawer-full of silverware, wondering if teaspoons actually hold a teaspoon, when he remembers that they still need to find a way to get this stuff into the kid.

"Hell," he swears, half under his breath. He's not sure how old the baby is, but the answer's clearly _young_ , probably too young to be drinking out of a cup young. And while he remembers seeing some stuff about guys being able to breastfeed under the right circumstances, he's not gonna bet the baby's life on one of them being one of the ones who can do it. Sean is also pretty sure MTS Centre DOES NOT STOCK rubber nipples, same as they don't seem to have measuring spoons, but they gotta come up with something. So he's thinking aloud when he asks, "What am I gonna put this in?"

But Trouba answers him, anyway, says, "We just need a bottle, right? The equipment guys have plenty of spare Gatorade ones," like it's obvious, like why wouldn't they want to feed the mysterious hockey baby out of one of their own water bottles. 

Sean's pretty sure the baby isn't going to be able to suck on one of those - not enough nipple for hir to latch onto - and, yeah, they're probably _squeeze_ bottles, but, like, in the little tiny baby vs professional hockey player sweeps, Sean's pretty sure the baby needs to drink a whole lot less at once than the hockey player. But he just tells Trouba, "Those aren't designed for babies."

Trouba, of course, comes right back with, "So what? They can hold milk - and you can use them to squeeze it into the kid's mouth. Which, you should probably stir it, if you want to be able to feed the kid this batch."

Fuck Trouba for being right, but he is about the milk needing stirring. Sean even knew that much about heating the stuff from adventures in making cocoa when he was a kid, which means nodding and turning back to the stove, now, with the teaspoon he was contemplating in hand - and, well, getting to it. And then replying, "Think about how much Gatorade comes out when you squeeze one of those."

Trouba's just starting to make his next argument when the sounds of Johnny and Scheifele's return start filtering into the kitchen. A couple minutes later, Scheifele enters the room carrying a bulging reusable shopping bag branded with the Jets logo, Johnny a step behind, mouth still going full-speed ahead. Though he at least doesn't seem to be giving Scheifele shit this time. Sean turns half away from the stove so he can watch Scheifele set the bag down on a table and start unpacking its contents, which turn out to be a whole stack of onesies, two creepers, two hats, and a bunch of socks and bibs, plus a big, plush fleece blanket. It's all done up in some combination of Jets blue, white and grey. 

Sean's just thinking that he guesses that means there wasn't anything to use to keep the kid from peeing on everything when Johnny produces a pair of plastic packages containing rubberized rain ponchos - with a flourish like he's a magician performing a particularly flashy trick. Sean rolls his eyes and says, "Great - think you guys can handle getting hir diapered and dressed while I finish dealing with the food?"

Johnny makes a face and puts up his hands in a gesture that says clearly that he wants no part in this. But Scheifele nods and Trouba says, "Sure, we're on it. How hard can it be?" then unzips the kid from his hoodie as he turns towards the tables on the other side of the kitchen, singing what Sean _thinks_ is soothing nonsense.

Sean shrugs and turns back to the stove and the milk - he may never have changed a diaper himself, but he's got his suspicions about just how overly optimistic Trouba's being. They're borne out in short order. He's still stirring the milk - warming it slowly - when Trouba and Scheifele start arguing with each other about how to turn one of the towels into an effective diaper. And keep it in place on the baby, along with the improvised plastic poncho diaper cover. That's followed by some bitten-off cursing that sounds like Scheifele, a few thumps Sean doesn't want to think about - and then the kid's wailing, lungs clearly just as healthy as they had been when the group of them found hir.

Trouba starts singing what sounds like nonsense - at least from where Sean is standing - to hir, which helps a little, but doesn't calm the kid down entirely.

"This diaper sh-stuff is harder than it looks." And that's Scheifele.

"Maybe we should see if one of the older guys knows how to do it." Trouba sounds dubious about the idea - and with good reason, Sean supposes: everybody uses disposable diapers these days.

Sean turns away from the stove a moment later, when Johnny starts protesting something - just in time to see Trouba and Scheifele hustling out of the room, apparently intent on tracking down some of the veterans and wresting arcane baby-care knowledge from them. Johnny's standing by the table with the baby on it, looking at the kid like it's a grenade that might explode if he breathes wrong in its direction. Sean snorts - the kid might turn into a poop grenade, later, once they've managed to feed hir, but for now the only danger Johnny's in is of setting the kid off even worse and having to calm hir down.

"Your face isn't that scary, so why don't you get hir wrapped up again - I bet the kid's cold."

"My face is a masterpiece of masculine beauty." Johnny returns, sounding all above-it-all. But he starts moving towards the table, so Sean guesses he can trust him to at least keep the kid warm until the cavalry arrives.

He leaves Johnny to it, spooning up a bit of the milk to test the temperature with the tip of one finger. It's finally warm enough to spoon some of the sugar in and expect it to melt, so he ditches the spoon he's been stirring with, gets a clean one out of the drawer and measures a couple spoonfuls of sugar into the pan, stirring again after it's all been added. When it's been mixed in, he turns off the stove and leaves the pan to cool a bit, since the blogs were all clear that you couldn't feed it to the kid fresh off the stove.

 

Trouba and Scheifele come back dragging another Jet - Wheeler - with them, and bearing a Gatorade bottle, plus scissors and a roll of tape from what Sean recognizes as the trainers' supplies. And a couple of gym towels. They're trailed by a selection of other guys`- a mix of Jets and Flames - clearly curious to find out what Trouba and Scheifele wanted Wheeler for.

Wheeler stops short when he gets a look at the contents of the table, says, "You weren't kidding about the baby part. But, uh, where did ...it come from?"

"By the players' entrance, just laying on the floor, butt-naked," Trouba tells him.

Wheeler sets to work getting the kid in a diaper, but he manages to keep asking questions at the same time, "Damn, not even wrapped in a blanket - or sitting in a carrier? And there wasn't any kind of note or anything?"

The question's clearly directed at Trouba, but Sean goes shuffling through his hoodie pockets, anyway, since he ended up with custody of the thing - there wasn't a note, but there was, well, something, anyway. "Just this tag," he says, pulling it out and passing it over to Trouba. It had been tied to one of the kid's wrists with a piece of red and blue striped ribbon.

Trouba shows it to Scheifele and Wheeler, then passes it on to one of the other Jets in their audience. It's a weird _thing_ , in Sean's opinion, with the Jets' wings logo and the number 17 on one side - and a buffalo head and a 15 on the other. The numbers don't make sense as a date, he doesn't think: too recent for the kid to have been conceived then - and probably too long ago for it to be when the kid was born. But he's not thinking about any of it too hard, just then, not while Wheeler's working black magic with a towel and one of the rubber ponchos, folding and cutting and twisting and taping, and Sean's trying to memorize every step of the process. Wheeler even gets the kid wrangled into a clean onesie and a creeper on top of that, plus a toque with a bobble on it and a new pair of socks. 

It all leaves Sean wishing he could get video review of the whole thing; from what he remembers, the dude pretty much had to have _grown an extra hand_ somewhere in there.

"No jerseys, huh?" That's Wheeler, again, still holding the kid, though Trouba looks like he's angling to get hir back the moment Wheeler gets distracted enough to make a snatch-and-grab possible.

Though he still manages to spare the attention to tell Wheeler, "Gonna have to wait to custom-order a baby-sized Trouba one," all 'duh - whose else's jersey would they want the kid to have?'.

That results in a round of Trouba getting chirped for not thinking his Captain's jersey was good enough for the kid - and giving as good as he gets in return. Sean tunes it out, mostly, to focus on putting some of the milk-sugar-and-water mixture in the unused Gatorade bottle, just enough to test its rate of flow on the kid.

In the middle of all that, another Jets guy busts out with, "How…? What…?" loud enough that Sean turns away from the stove, bottle in hand, to see what set him off. The guy's standing there in his Jets hoodie and shorts,`holding the baby tag, looking like he doesn't quite believe the tag is real. His hoodie has a 17 on it, which probably makes him...Lowry. Number 17. Sean's watched some of his tape.

"What, what?" Trouba asks him back, bouncing the baby a little - clearly his snatch-and-grab worked.

"That's MY number," Lowry says, pointing to the side of the tag with the Jets' logo. Which, yes, Sean had already concluded that. "And THAT," Lowry continues, flipping the tag over, "was mine with the CBHA. When I played minor hockey back in Calgary."

Sean thinks he can say, officially, that this information DOESN'T ACTUALLY MAKE THE SITUATION LESS CONFUSING. Which fact everybody seems to agree with. All around him, guys are breaking out into conversations. He can hear Lowry saying something about how he wasn't even IN Winnipeg at the right time to make this kid a possibility - and it doesn't look anything like he did as a baby, anyway. Wheeler is trying to explain to Trouba and Scheifele the ins and outs of what he'd done with the diaper. And Johnny, of course, is talking shit.

There's nothing for it but to finish getting the kid's test bottle together and swoop in and try out feeding hir - figuring out what the hell Lowry has to do with anything is not nearly as a high a priority as doing the basic shit required to keep the kid alive, particularly since Lowry doesn't seem inclined to help.

 

Winnipeg hadn't been supposed to get this storm. Not like this, anyway. It had been supposed to hit northern Manitoba hard, but only dump 15 or so cm of snow on the southern end of the province. Slowly. No reason to cancel the game. And yet here they are, with conditions gone from 'it's just a little snow' to 'complete white-out' while the teams were switching out between morning skates. It hasn't let up since. Doesn't seem like it's planning to any time soon, either, not if the weather report the coaches had delivered after skate was anything to go by. Winnipeg's apparently supposed to get at least 50 cm of snow. In April.

Everybody else is chilling out, talking about how Winnipeg's never gotten 50 cm of snow in one go, even in January, and bitching about how they aren't going anywhere any time soon, not until the snow lets up enough that the plow drivers can see to plow themselves out (and possibly not for over a day or so after that).

But not Sean. He's continuing to focus on keeping the kid alive. It's not like he has anything better to do with the game canceled - or like he trusts the Trouba-Scheifele duo to do it without supervision. So he's made their original training room his headquarters, using the training table to change the baby and sitting in the wheelie-chair to feed hir. He's doing just that - for a second time, not even an hour after the first go-round - using a medicine spoon, liberated from the trainers (he was right about the Gatorade bottle and its rate of flow), when a bearded guy in a Jets polo sticks his head in. 

Sean clocks him as support staff - and the first words out of the guy's mouth, "Craig Slaunwhite, team nutritionist," prove him right. The guy continues with, "I figured the guys were pulling my leg when they said some of the rookies were looking after a baby, but if they weren't, well, can't fault me for being curious, right?" And then, "So, what're you feeding the kid?"

It's a variation on a question Sean regularly fields about himself, from his own team nutritionist - and it induces its usual reflexive moment of guilt before Sean gets his head around the fact that he might've just been gifted an amazing source of live and in-person advice. And gets his mouth moving to say, "Uh, this milk mixture that was recommended as an emergency substitute for formula or...uh, breast milk." Which, fuck, what is Sean's life? Those words aren't supposed to be relevant to it. It feels super weird to even be saying them.

Craig's nodding, though, like Sean's making sense - and talking about breast milk substitutes with an NHL rookie isn't even slightly weird in his world. And then he asks, "What's in it besides milk?"

Sean knows the recipe by heart, now, feels like the proportions are etched into his brain alongside the Flames' playbook and how many years it's been since his team made the playoffs and how Johnny takes his coffee, but he just says, "It's enriched whole milk diluted with a mixture of sugar and purified water." And when he puts it like that, it suddenly seems way more inadequate. 

Working with hockey players has clearly given Craig an eye for when to guilt and when to just get to fixing whatever needs fixing, because he says, matter-of-fact, "Babies aren't really my area - obviously - but I know enough to know that's not gonna cut it, long-term. I bet we can put something together that'll get you guys through the storm, though." And he sounds like he means it. 

The words, "Yes, please," are out of Sean's mouth before he's even aware of deciding to speak. His brain's already moved on to thinking about what to search for to get them a starting point. He bets the crazy make your own baby food people have something to say about homemade formula.

 

Halfway through the second, Sean comes off the ice through the bench door at the end of a shift, the better to get a look at the baby. Craig's standing at the mouth of the tunnel to the away dressing room, holding hir - he drew during the game babysitting duties as soon as it became clear the kid liked him - and every time Sean's checked, so far, zie's been staring out at the ice, looking fascinated by the action. Or, well, however much of it hir eyes are catching. A check-in with the team doctor had set the kid's age as only a few weeks old.

Right now, zie's drooping, but fighting sleep in order to catch more of the game.

Sean waves - and gets to watch Craig waving one of hir hands back at him - before he has to slide down the bench to let Scheifele's line in. The coaches decided to have them play an informal game with mixed teams to try and keep it fun - and divvied them up so the teams were basically Canada vs The Rest of the World (with a few Canadians who went the college hockey route on the World side - and Pavelec loaned to Canada). All their gear was already there and they didn't have anywhere better to be - or anything better to do - so why not? The Flames never even got to have morning skate that morning.

It's been a crazy game, so far. 

They started with Hutchinson vs. Karri in goal - and while the scoring hasn't been quite All Star Game levels of ridiculous, nobody's getting in the way of Byfuglien's shots and the goalies sure aren't risking breaking themselves pointlessly. Sean's already picked up an assist on a Kane goal and, in some ways, it feels like being back in training camp - without the pressure of playing your way into a spot in the line-up - with the coaches trying out crazy line combos on the fly and everybody's passes connecting on a wing and a prayer. Sometimes they've been connecting with the wrong side, too, linemate instinctively passing to linemate.

Even the coaching staff mixed it up - Coach Bob is behind the Canada bench, backed up by the Jets' assistants - and the Jets' media team has been filming the whole thing.

By the time Sean's rotated through another shift and back to the bench, the kid's lost the fight with sleep and is sacked out in Craig's arms - and Trouba's plastered to the divider between the benches, singing the end of something Sean can't make out the words to. It goes on like that, with Hills and Pavelec taking their turns in net, guys trying all sorts of trick shots, and more than a few pucks ending up in the stands. When Johnny ties it up for the Rest of the World, in the final minute of play - and that stands up to Canada's efforts - the coaches unilaterally declare they're going to wrap up with a shootout drill, with the losers clearing the pucks off the ice afterwards.

Canada does get through the shootout drill first, in the end, but Sean's long gone from the ice by that point, off to relieve Craig of his baby-holding duties.

 

Sean's in the team kitchen, wrangling more of their homemade formula mark two into the kid, when Johnny wanders in. He doesn't offer to help with the baby, just ambles over to the cupboard with the tea and coffee supplies and starts brewing a pot of coffee. When's he's finished spooning sugar into a mug, he turns to Sean and says, "We're bunking up in the corporate suites."

Sean nods and feeds the kid another spoonful of formula - that actually makes a bunch of sense, what with how those things come with, like, luxury seating and couches and shit. They probably even have blankets, to protect those delicate corporate types from the cold of the rink.

Johnny continues, "Dinner's gonna be soon, too."

And Sean's definitely looking forward to that; there wasn't that much left of the Jets' post-practice meal by the time he got a chance at it that morning - and while there _was_ a pre-game meal, of sorts, after their experiments in home-brewing formula, Sean's played a hockey game since then. He's still got energy for giving Johnny shit, though, saying, "But you're making the most of the Jets' hospitality in the meantime."

"Gonna have to wait to get two points out of them, so might as well get whatever else I can in the meantime." Johnny smirks, confidence as outsized as ever, even in the wake of that afternoon's defeat. But, then, his game-tying goal _had_ been fucking pretty.

Not that Sean's telling him that. He settles for, "Well, don't spoil your appetite." Which, _god_ , that makes him sound as boring as Twitter's decided he is.

But Johnny just chirps back, "Thanks, _mom_ \- but I don't think it's possible to spoil your appetite for winning."

And Sean guesses he can agree with - he's yet to have so much winning he didn't have room for a little more, anyway.

 

The post-game dinner is catered by one of the arena restaurants, food put together by staff who had come in to do prep and gotten trapped by the storm same as the teams and a bunch of the Jets front office people. They eat sprawled around the video room, watching the rest of the league play hockey in places that aren't being hit by record-breaking amounts of snow.

Trouba steals the kid back for more cuddling after one period - and Sean lets hir go without too much fuss, though he keeps an eye out for trouble; he's still not convinced Trouba's fit for solo baby care.

They start out watching Habs/Leafs, because with the Habs resting Price for the playoffs it should be a bit more of an even match-up - and there's plenty of guys who're still invested in the fortunes of one or the other team, despite being paid to beat them. And it turns out to be a pretty good game. The Leafs have been completely out of the playoff picture for months, but they're clearly determined to go down fighting - and with the Habs resting not just Price, but a few of their other key guys, it turns into a back-and-forth, high-scoring outing, one where neither of the teams controls the play for long.

When Sean looks over between the second and third periods, the kid's asleep against Trouba's chest - and they've gained an audience.

They're shooting the shit, too - and the conversation, now that Sean bothers to pay attention to it, turns out to be about What To Name the Baby. The first thing Sean catches is Trouba suggesting, "Winnie. Or Jake," and those ideas getting booed by his audience.

Sean's not expecting the guy speaking next to be Johnny, though, since he knows Johnny doesn't actually care, but there Johnny is, saying, "I'm liking the sound of Cal - or Callie - it's got a real ring to it." He's leaning back in his chair, balanced on its back legs, taking up way more space than a guy his size should.

Scheifele jumps in to say, 'We're NOT naming the kid for Calgary." 

"Well, then the same goes for Winnipeg," Johnny tells him, equally firmly.

And it devolves from there into considering and discarding the names of an assortment of famous hockey players, musicians and actors - with a sideline in movie musical characters, as contributed by Trouba and Scheifele.

Lowry - Adam, apparently - protesting naming the kid after him brings the room's attention back to the whole mystery aspect of things. He's clearly not at all interested in anything like being a father - and for good reason, since he's a young guy without a partner. And yet he's equally clearly tied to the whole mess in some way.

Of course, his increasingly vehement denials of any possible involvement in creating the kid just lead to his teammates - and Sean's - coming up with increasingly unlikely ways that he could've been involved without his knowledge. It starts with things like Lowry hooking up with Winnipeg girls visiting Calgary over the summer without ever finding out where they were from. And it leads to things like Bogosian proposing sperm-stealing ninjas bent on creating legions of Canadian super hockey players. 

And then, somehow, it leads to another of the Jets - Perrault, Sean remembers from the afternoon's game - saying, "So, my second season with the Caps, back in 2011, there was this weird story that made the rounds that spring. And, like, I don't know for certain that it's true - I never saw any proof - so you probably shouldn't go spreading it around the rest of the league, but everybody I heard about it from thought it was, anyway."

That's enough to get his audience's attention, easy - if there's one thing that's always gonna be true, it's that hockey players are inveterate gossips. And this sounds like exactly the kind of juicy story they like best. So just about everybody involved in the conversation shuts up and listens, except one wise-guy - Sean doesn't know who - who asks, "Yeah? So are you gonna tell us, or what?"

Perrault doesn't seem bothered, though, just continues with, " _Anyway_ , what was supposed to have happened is that one day, in the middle of March, Ovechkin woke up to find that somebody had left a baby on his doorstep. And not, like, in a carrier or anything. Just laying there. No note, no birth certificate, nothing to explain where the kid had come from. But it had the Ovechkin nose, so it seemed like it could be his. The only problem was that right around when it would've been conceived, he would've been in the middle of taking the Habs to seven games - and then in Germany, at Worlds. He mostly hadn't been in D.C. - and when he was, he hadn't had time to focus on much of anything but hockey.

And, yet, there was the kid.

So Ovi spent a while asking around and eventually one of the people he talked to - I have no idea who; nobody seemed to know _that_ part - told him that, well, sometimes the Hockey Gods grant wishes. Winning the Cup makes it more likely, apparently, but even just feeling really, really strongly about something hockey-related can do it. And his source thought that getting knocked out of the playoffs in the first round, after the amazing season he - we - had had, well, that definitely would've made him feel strongly enough to do it. But the thing about the Hockey Gods is that when they grant wishes, they can be a bit...unpredictable. So they decided to fulfill Ovi's desperate desire for a hockey legacy by giving him a kid."

When Perrault pauses, again, a whole bunch of different guys start talking over each other. Sean can definitely make out a 'The Hockey Gods are real?' and a 'Wow, that's fucked up.' and a 'But Ovechkin doesn't have a kid.', but there's enough voices that he knows other stuff is getting lost in the noise, as well.

When the noise dies down a little, Perrault says, "Okay, okay," and starts answering some of the questions, starting with, "The kid got sent back to Russia to be raised by relatives there - Mama Ovechkin didn't have time to look after her, as well as Ovi - and Ovechkin, well, he wasn't much pleased that the hockey gods thought that giving him a kid was as good as giving him a Cup. Don't get me wrong, the guy couldn't hate her, but she was always going to be a bittersweet reminder of what else he didn't have. At least as long as the Caps continue Cup-less." And then adding, "And, yeah, if this is true, then the Hockey Gods _are_ real, apparently. I'm personally hoping I never get to find out for sure, though."

That sets the guys gathered around Trouba to talking again, speculating about how the Hockey Gods work their magic - and what other stuff they might've had a hand in. Sean stays quiet, though, splitting his attention between the baby, still asleep on Trouba's chest, and Lowry, who's looking like he's taken a puck to the balls; Perrault's story clearly hit home. Sean's not about to get involved in whatever Lowry's feeling uninvited, though.

In the end, he doesn't need to; Lowry speaks up all on his own, during a third period commercial break, says, over a commercial for Molson, "Guess I might have something to do with this after all," and then, "You're going to think I'm some dumb, angsty kid for this, but last summer, when I got my invite to Jets development camp, well, I was at home in Calgary - and it just really hit home that I might actually get to play for the Jets, play against the Flames. I wanted to play for the Jets, no question, but at the same time I couldn't help wishing I could bring it all together, merge the two organizations somehow. And I didn't exactly let it get me down - I know how things work in the show - but apparently that was enough for the Hockey Gods to decide to send me a baby." The look on his face says all too clearly that he doesn't like living in a world where 'be careful what you wish for' needs to be taken this literally.

Scheifele shakes his head and says, "Fuck, the Hockey Gods are _weird_."

And Sean can't really find it in himself to disagree - how does dumping a mysterious baby on a rookie hockey player help with anything to do with making him feel less like he's got conflicted loyalties about playing against his hometown team? The rest of the guys sitting around watching the Habs/Leafs game seem to agree, as well - and the conversation wanders on, idly, in that direction, as the rest of the third period plays out. When the Leafs scrape out the GWG, just before the buzzer, most of them have only half their attention on the game.

There's still a little shouting, though - the Leafs can always inspire that much, no matter what they're doing - enough to wake the baby, anyway.

Sean scoops hir up off of Trouba's chest before he can even think about starting to sing anything, joggles hir a little to soothe hir - he still can't remember any lullabies - and starts heading for their training room and the team kitchen. It's probably time to check the kid's diaper and get another couple ounces of the homebrewed formula into hir. He's not expecting Johnny to fall into step with him, but Johnny does - and Sean just...doesn't ask.

Johnny's gonna do whatever Johnny wants to do; that's just a fact of life as Sean knows it these days - and deciding to go for a walk with Sean and the baby is far from the weirdest thing Johnny could be choosing to do at the moment.

They continue walking in silence until they've made it down the hall and around the corner from the video review room - though Johnny pulls out a lighter and starts flicking it on and off and then on again as soon as they get out the door. And then Johnny just asks, as blunt as hell as usual, "Why're you still taking care of the kid? We know it's Lowry's for sure, now. This should be his problem."

Sean shrugs, says, "I know how to do it, as much as any of us do. And you saw how he looked back there - he didn't want anything to do with being in charge of hir."

Johnny scoffs, "He could learn - or do what Ovechkin did and find relatives to take care of his kid. But he made the wish, so it's _his_ problem."

All that's objectively true - and Sean even mostly doesn't disagree - but one of the other things he took away from reading all those parenting blogs is that kids do best when they have people taking care of them who really want to be doing it. Lowry's practically had a forcefield of Do Not Want around him ever since the possibility was raised that the kid might have something to do with him. And getting some sort of confirmation definitely hadn't made it go away. Sean just can't find it in him to stick the kid with that level of disinterest, not when there are still other options.

He's joggling the kid against his chest and smiling ruefully down at hir when Johnny busts out with, "...you aren't thinking about keeping it." And Johnny sounds disturbed enough by the idea that Sean almost laughs out loud - because Sean isn't, not really; he knows he isn't in any kind of position to be a single parent, but he's self-aware enough to know he's gotten a little attached, already.

All he tells Johnny, though, is, "Not seriously. I just wanna make sure whoever does take hir really wants hir. And that isn't Lowry."

That gets Johnny deflating pretty much immediately, saying, "Yeah, okay, I get that," sounding quietly sincere. Because no matter how much of an asshole he may pretend to be, at heart he really is a good guy.

The rest of the feeding-and-changing mission goes off pretty smoothly. The kid only spits up a little when Sean burps hir - and doesn't pee on either of them when hir diaper comes off. And by the time they're done and heading back to the video review room, zie's drooping, so Sean figures on handing his back over to Trouba on their return.

He wants to watch a little more hockey before calling it a night.

Instead he walks back into the middle of What To Name the Baby, Part II. The 'Nucks/Oilers game is on, but just about nobody's paying attention to it. Mostly, it's providing a soundtrack for the intense discussion the room's devolved into.

Just then, Trouba's proving he either paid attention to what Sean was saying earlier or did some googling of his own, saying, "What's in the kid's diaper doesn't matter. Whatever we pick for a name shouldn't be just a boy's name or a girl's name."

Bogosian asks, "So, like, Taylor? Or Jamie?"

One of the older Jets - Sean can't remember his name - says, "There's already way too many of both of those."

"But like that," Bogosian says, rolling his eyes.

"Yes, like that."

That sets everybody involved to listing off names they've seen used by both men and women, but when they troop upstairs to go to sleep - abandoning the 'Nucks/Oilers game - they aren't any closer to narrowing things down (or even agreeing on who gets final say). Trouba's still got hold of the baby - and doesn't look inclined to let hir go any time soon. Which means that Sean's sleeping wherever he does, since he's not about to let Trouba take sole charge of hir. And also probably where Johnny and Scheifele are, since neither of them looks willing to leave them alone in the company of the other. They end up putting together a weird, makeshift bed comprised of two couches, a coffee table, a few throw pillows and four blankets. 

It barely holds all of them, but at least sleeping like this is something Sean remembers a lot of the blogs being in favor of - and he manages to make Johnny and Scheifele sleep at opposite ends.

He feels like he's barely fallen asleep when the kid wakes him up again. Trouba goes right on sleeping, the asshole, but Sean still can't remember any lullabies, even with Trouba being quiet, so two a.m. and change finds him holding the baby in one arm and the medicine spoon in his other hand, standing in the middle of the team kitchen, a cup of their homebrewed formula, mark two, sitting on the counter, in easy reach. It's going down easy - and Sean's hoping that he can get all of it into hir before the toaster pops, producing middle-of-the-night-feeding reward toast.

He gets his toast, gets the kid burped and changed, washes up and gets them back to bed - and then lies there letting the kid suck on his fingers and telling hir hockey plays until zie goes to sleep again.

When he wakes up again, for real, his phone says it's just after six. Johnny's curled around his back - and the kid's looking up at him, looking like zie's considering crying, so Sean slips out of Johnny's grasp and scoops hir up. Everybody else still being asleep means it's up to him to head downstairs for yet another round of talking hir through taking spoonfuls of formula and liberating a towel to diaper hir with.

He mixes it up a bit, though, getting a clean towel-diaper on hir before heating up a serving of formula, making his own toast, and retiring to the video review room to feed hir in front of one of the screens.

It maybe makes him boring and prematurely old, but he doesn't even think about pulling up anything other than the morning news. Whatever, he just wants a weather report with a side of hockey results. He can guess that they're probably not going anywhere any time soon, sure, but he likes knowing specifics. 

And watching the morning news is the easiest way to get that.

The specifics leave him staring at the screen, spoonful of formula halfway to the kid's mouth - because the storm they're weathering? Blew right past the predicted snowfall in the middle of the night and doesn't show any sign of stopping any time soon, apparently content to hover over Winnipeg and snow its heart out. Which, well, they're _really_ not going anywhere anytime soon, in that case.

Or getting to play that final regular season game they're here for - not unless the league has a team of snow ninja refs to deploy.

In the end, the only immediately useful thing he gets out of watching is that he's still listening when the lady doing the weather moves on to talking about whether the storm's going to move on to hit any of the U.S. and, if so, when. And that segment includes a discussion of how the U.S. names their winter storms. And he discovers that this one's supposed to be called Yuli.

When he hears that - he's never known anybody named that before, but whatever - it immediately seems obvious that this kid, who showed up during this massive storm, should be named after it.

Nobody else is there to share this revelation with, so he carries on feeding the kid and thinking about the name, about how it's hopefully not a name people are gonna think of as a girls' name or a boys' name. And, yeah, it's maybe dooming the kid to a lifetime of explaining how hir name is spelled, which isn't great, but the more Sean thinks about it, the more sure he becomes that there isn't a more right option out there, as far as names go. So now he just has to convince the rest of the guys of that.

He looks down at the kid, where zie's sucking a little on the spoon, smiles at hir - and asks, "What do you think, Yuli?"

Yuli doesn't answer, of course, just makes a face that might be a smile or might just mean zie needs to be burped.

 

They're still sitting there, watching hockey highlights, when Trouba wanders in a while later, announces, "Apparently we're doing a skills contest today. Your coach's idea," and flops down in the seat next to Sean's.

Sean rolls his eyes, because of course Coach Bob would decide the best way to keep snowed-in hockey players out of trouble would be to hold a mini All Star Game, Flames-Jets edition. All he says, though, is, "I bet Johnny wants another chance at his flaming stick trick."

Trouba laughs around his mouthful of breakfast sandwich, swallows, and says, "I hope you guys gave him plenty of shit over that when he got back from Columbus."

"We barely had to do anything - the beats had it covered. By the time they were done with him, he was about as sick of talking about that as he had been of talking about the whole trademarking his nickname thing," Sean tells him, smirking a little. He'd felt a little bad for Johnny, at the time, since it had been a cool idea, but there'd never been any chance he'd be allowed to try it. And he'd had to have known that.

And that gets Trouba shaking his head, smiling fondly as he says, "Gotta love him, but the guy sure has a talent for making his own life _interesting_."

Sean just nods his agreement, because in his experience that's certainly one of the eternal truths of Johnny Gaudreau - and then silence reigns while Trouba finishes eating his breakfast sandwiches and Sean sits there, stroking Yuli's back while zie sleeps.

When Trouba runs out of food, he makes grabby hands in Yuli's direction and says, "C'mon - gimme the kid and I'll show you where they're feeding us breakfast."

 

A TV's on and playing a weather report when they make it to the room with the breakfast spread. And while Sean's putting together a plate piled with protein and carbs and fruit, he catches a few of the guys from the previous night's baby name conversation discussing the same storm name bit that had caught his attention earlier. He still takes time to carefully fix his coffee - get it just the way he likes it - before he wanders over, but inside he's fist-pumping. It's not clear what they're going to do with the baby, but Sean might at least win on the what to name hir front.

The odds start looking even better when he manages to slide his tray onto the table across from Johnny's, just in time to say, "Yuli, huh? I like it," in reply to one of the guys suggesting it. It's maybe not super subtle, but, well, hockey players don't do subtle much, so what does it matter? The heads nodding around the table are what counts - and there're plenty of them. Apparently massive weather events appeal across team and national lines.

 

By the time the skills comp rolls around, they've dealt with baby poop - what little of it there is gets dumped in the toilet before anything gets washed; the internet was firm about that - negotiated with the equipment guys over getting said laundry done, and had to change Yuli's clothes twice. Also, Yuli is definitively Yuli, with options on being Yulie, Yulia, Yulian, Yuliana, Yulianne or Yulius down the road. Since it worked so well the day before, Craig takes charge of hir while Sean and the rest of the guys divide into the previous day's teams and run through the usual skills comp events.

It all goes well enough until Johnny steps up to take his turn in the breakaway challenge.

Sean isn't surprised when Johnny extracts the lighter from his pants. Or when he manages to get his stick burning. Maybe a little that nobody tries to stop him, but, well, it's cold out on the ice and there's nothing official about this. What he's really surprised by, for just a moment, though, is Yuli starting to wail partway through Johnny skating at Hiller, hands extra careful on his flaming stick. It's not clear what part of the situation zie's reacting to, but it doesn't seem likely to be a coincidence.

Zie's loud as a siren - and it stops Johnny in his tracks, practically has him jumping out of his skates.

He's close enough to the goal that, once he's recovered, it would be silly for him to not finish skating at Hills and take his shot. It's a bit half-hearted, though - Hills gloves it easily - and when an equipment guy skates out afterwards with a fire extinguisher and puts out Johnny's stick, well, it all feels a little anti-climactic. That was not the Jersey boy spectacle Johnny intended to put on.

The big take-away lesson from the incident, though, turns out to be that Trouba really does have a talent for calming Yuli down.

When Sean turns away from the ice, Trouba's standing next to Craig, rocking Yuli and singing to hir - and, for the first time, Sean thinks that maybe Trouba might be as serious as he is about this. None of this solves the problem of where Yuli's going when the storm ends, but, well, it opens up options. Which they can consider when they get to them.

For now, Sean has a breakaway goal to score for Team Canada.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think that this is what the wish-granting Hockey Goddess/Fairy looks like:
> 
> missuniversecanada.ca/miss-universe-canada-2014-at-the-miss-universe-2014-preliminary-competition/
> 
> And, as you can see, Jacob Trouba has a history of absconding with small children:
> 
> http://instagram.com/p/wmX3p2sSe5/

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Study in the Soothing of Magical Hockey Babies, Conducted by Jacob Trouba](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10550820) by [Vidriana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vidriana/pseuds/Vidriana)




End file.
